OotP Chapter Thirty-One

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

*All Ron wants to do is talk over the match. Ho-hum, Ron. Quidditch isn’t important when Harry isn’t in it.

*Harry, of course, never has to go over games for anyone, because when Harry wins a match everyone wants to tell the story to him.

*Ron now thinks Harry and Hermione were at the match, though in the last chapter, when he saw them coming from the forest and told them that they’d won the Quidditch cup, it seemed like he knew they weren’t there.

*Ron reminds Harry of James, which makes him grin, so he now understands liking someone even though he’s a putz. Thanks Ron, for letting him see that, given that he himself is so humble he’d never understand the need to show off if left to his own devices!

*ETA: Apparently Ron was rumpling his hair as he talked and that’s what reminded Harry of James. Ron was rumpling his hair? That seemed like a sort of trademark thing you don’t do unless you have the Potter hair. Are we to assume Ron’s rumpling for Hermione? (Perhaps that’s part of the male wizard’s mating ritual.)

*Just to show that I do understand the petty, vengeful attitudes of our main characters, I’ll tell you I would completely understand if, instead of throwing her broom away, Cho had shoved it up Ginny’s...well, wherever she’d want to shove it.

*Poor Cho. She’s apparently played fairly badly all year as well because she was in such a bad emotional state. Wonder if she’ll be kicked off the team. Well, she deserves it. She's displeased with Harry. When she starts crushing on him again then she can come back.

*Ron begins to get red when his friends tell him no, they weren’t there during his important moment, but quickly puts it aside once he hears Hagrid’s story. That Ron. He’s just so jealous and such a bad friend. Harry and Hermione are so nice to put up with him, fifth wheel though he is.

*Ron again has a moment of being the smart one telling Harry and Hermione they’ll just have to break their promise to Hagrid. Something tells me Ron probably finds this easier to stomach because he’s used to people breaking promises to him, and to being disappointed by people in the kinds of ways nobody is sympathetic about.

*ETA: Sadly, that scene is probably really showing that Ron is the disloyal one.

*When Hermione says they promised Hagrid so they have to go and see Grawp, Ron smoothes his hair flat again while "looking preoccupied." Hmm...something interesting going on with Ron there? ETA: Of course not!

*It’s really too bad Harry and Hermione don’t come down with a bad case of painful boils right around now. It would really be funny, what with how stressed they are over their exams. Right?

*Much as I’m sure Draco is lying about his family having ties to someone as important as the woman who gives students exams (that's almost as cool as the person who gives the eye test for your driver's license) if Neville says he is, why would Griselda Marchbanks having never mentioned the Malfoys in Neville’s presence mean she didn’t know them? Makes more sense to me to think she has been round to dinner at their house and Malfoy’s just exaggerating by implying this will get him a good mark on his OWLS.

*Hermione’s confiscating and destroying all quasi-uppers from wizards. You know, it would almost be more believable if Hermione were the one trying to buy them and possibly putting herself in hospital with a nervous breakdown. Isn’t it people like her that fall into that trap on TV? (Nocturne Alley went that route, a bit.) I mean, this is the girl who wanted to take all the classes in one day, and god knows she'd think she could handle it.

*The first OWL is Theory of Charms. Guess they’ll just write that theory is useless on their paper and skip to the practical.

*When Dumbledore took his NEWTS he did things with a wand Marchbanks had never seen before. (Pauses for whatever dirty thoughts that brings to mind.) You can see why Dumbledore likes Harry so much. They’re just both so special.

*ETA: Not that we'll ever really get a sense of the amazing things people are supposed to do with wands, since magical theory doesn't really hold together. Snape seems to be amazing too, but apparently all it takes to make up a new spell is to think up a fake Latin word for what you want to do and say it.

*Very first question, it’s Harry’s practical experience that gives him the edge.

*Wine glass. Hee.

*Harry consoles himself that his levitation charm went better than Draco’s (who broke it halfway through), but I’m glad he and Ron made some even more glaring mistakes, as did other students.

*Harry performs all the counter-jinxes he knows in front of Umbridge. He doesn’t know any actual jinxes, of course. Just counter-ones. Harry also conjures a Patronus, which has become an amazing feat again, and awes everyone in the room.

*Harry really is naïve to think Umbridge will wait for proof of guilt before condemning someone. When has any wizard ever waited for proof of anything?

*Remember kids, if Harry hadn’t illegally taken Polyjuice Hermione made from stolen ingredients (that he helped steal by throwing a firecracker in another student’s cauldron) in order to violate another student’s privacy and another house’s common room, he might have done REALLY badly on his Potions. Let that be a lesson to you.

*In the next row, Draco Malfoy unfairly aces questions on the effects of fifteen counter-hexes and transfiguration into an animal.

*Crabbe and Goyle get points off for thinking one of the effects of taking Knock-out Potion is you wake up in your underwear.

*Again, why is Hermione not the target of all those practical jokes that are usually leveled against people who are mean, nasty and stuck-up? Does everyone find her bad temper and snootiness endearing?

*Will Divination be the only OWL Harry fails, or will it turn out he got Outstanding on it because Divination is a joke anyway? ETA: Iirc, he flunks Divination and History of Magic. The two useful subjects (and one of them doesn't count because he was BEING TORMENTED BY VOLDEMORT DURING THE TEST!)

*Here’s another one of those, "disgraceful behaviors!" that we get once in a while. McGonagall comes running at the people trying to contain Hagrid and his dog with stunning spells. They all turn around and stun her. Tofty is shocked: "Not even a warning!" So apparently it’s expected one gives a warning in those kinds of situations. It’s pretty much exactly what happens on the train later. Everyone turns and fires at once with no warning, on the defensive, so she gets hit with many spells at once.

*Umbridge is evil for trying to sneak up on Hagrid in the dead of night. If by "sneak up" you mean go up to his front door and knock. Frankly, avoiding a scene like Trelawney’s makes sense to me.

*Btw, Umbridge was clearly right to bring security when firing Hagrid.

*ETA: Dammit, giant spiders. I will never forgive you for not eating him.

*Apparently Hagrid’s been teaching much better this year—of course he has. Because he’s good and all you people who don’t like him suck!

*Really, it seems he's too distracted by his hugely illegal activities and the dangerous creature he had disrupting the forest to fill his need for danger and mayhem in class.

*Anyway, Hermione reminds us again that Hagrid has been sacked because he is a half-giant and Umbridge hates that, so it’s racism, as opposed to the much more obvious conclusion, which is that Umbridge is sacking those teachers who are especially loyal to Dumbledore. It seems Dean agrees with me. Oh, and also she thinks he’s putting Nifflers in her office. Rather ironic that if Umbridge is trying to fire Hagrid on race grounds that she feels she has to wait for a legitimate reason to fire him.

*ETA: Hagrid's teaching ability turned out to be something that was always "getting better" which meant it consistently sucked.

*For a second I wondered if Harry’s staring at Parvati’s hair was a hint of Harry/Parvati. If the auror thing doesn’t work out, I think Harry should become a hairdresser. ETA: LOL! As if the Auror thing couldn't have worked out!

*Voldemort’s voice in Harry’s vision seems to be saying he can’t take down the Prophesy. Is that true, that he can’t touch it? I thought he could. Bah, I can’t remember. ETA: He should be able to touch it, dammit. Voldemort should.

*Okay, when somebody says, "Lord Voldemort is waiting..." is that Lord Voldemort himself talking? Referring to himself in the third person? And this guy never gives anyone the giggles? "Wormtail, get Lord Voldemort his Kom Pau! Lord Voldemort likes his chicken spicy!"

*When Harry falls off his chair I imagine half the kids in the hall saying, "Well, we knew we couldn’t get through the whole exam process without Harry Potter having some sort of scene."

*Wonder if Voldemort has a big school calendar, complete with OWLS schedule, that he makes his plans by.



The Borgnine Proviso
Ernest Borgnine IS Griselda Marchbanks.

Informed Attributes
The Patronus is difficult again, Hagrid’s been teaching much better this year. Hermione isn’t despised and unpopular, Hagrid is being sacked because he’s a half-giant and Neville is an authority on who Lucius Malfoy has to dinner.

McGuffin
Not much longer before that weapon is revealed to be something incredibly lame.

POV Shots (n)
Lord Voldemort likes pov shots. Lord Voldemort is quite good with pov shots. Lord Voldemort knows to refer to himself in the third person in pov shots, so that we know whose pov we are in.

Final score: 4.6